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Projects
The University of Cape Town (UCT) needs the support of its alumni to help it maintain and build on the quality of its education – to continue to deliver consistently high standards and equip students with the skills necessary to meaningfully contribute to South Africa and its ability to compete globally.
Your gift will be a long term investment in South Africa and will undoubtedly help to change lives.
The Schools Improvement Initiative (SII) is one of UCT’s four strategic initiatives and serves as a vehicle for extending the university’s engagement in schooling. This is achieved by drawing on university wide resources, including student organisations, and by forging links and developing collaborations with education-related groupings outside of the university. In this way, the SII assists the Western Cape Education Department in improving the quality of education across the province.
The SII focuses its interventions on schools in the township of Khayelitsha in the Cape Town Metropole. Whereas the core of their school improvement work takes place within three primary and two secondary partner schools, through the 100-UP university preparation programme, the SII works in all 20 secondary schools in the Khayelitsha township.
To read more about the SII and their projects, visit the SII website here!
The UCT Trust administers many bursaries at UCT which are funded by Foundations, Companies and individuals, based here in the UK.
Named Bursary programmes are aimed specifically at either a field of study, or have specified requirements that need to be met. For instance, bursaries can be specifically aimed at budding female medical practitioners who are studying for MBChB or allied healthcare disciplines; Opera students; Business Science – to name but a few.
All bursary programmes are aimed at young people from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. Donors receive annual progress reports on the students they are supporting.
As UCT Trust is a UK charity, individual donors can, of course, reap tax benefits on donations from taxable income, and the UCT Trust is able to claim an extra 25% Gift Aid on top of those donations.
We are delighted to offer alumni the opportunity to invest in the future of UCT’s Opera School, which for nearly ninety years has been creating opera stars for the world’s stages.
The School prides itself on discovering vocal talent amidst impoverished communities that are rich in musical culture, and takes great pleasure in transforming the lives of singers and the audiences who are thrilled by them.
The Opera School, as a major opera training institution in South Africa, is a cradle for talent and needs your support to continue turning fragile dreams into imaginative opportunities.
UCT needs support from alumni around the world to help it rebuild and recover.
We are therefore asking alumni and friends in the UK to consider making a contribution to the UCT Jagger Recovery Fund which will assist in rebuilding the Jagger Reading Room after the fire, which struck in April last year.
Your gift will greatly assist with the restoration of the Jagger Reading Room where it will help UCT rebuild and rehabilitate this historic building. Although, heartbreakingly, many of the destroyed artefacts are completely irreplaceable, UCT is determined to ensure that a safe new home for scholarship will emerge from the ashes and some exciting plans are afoot.
The main purpose of the 100 UP programme is to better prepare academically gifted Khayelitsha learners to compete for places at UCT, and other HEIs (Higher Education Institutions), once they have completed their Matric studies. A key feature of the programme is the retention of equal numbers of learners from each of the twenty high schools in Khayelitsha. Five learners per school are chosen and are developed to advance “up and beyond”. 100-UP learners are selected in Grade 10 and continue in the programme until the end of their Grade 12 school year.
The impoverished Mitchells Plain township, which borders the Khayelitsha community, is also included and academically strong Grade 12 learners from 15 high schools participate in the Gill Net programme. These learners are selected based on their school performance in the June examination.
100-UP is run by staff in the Schools Development Unit (SDU) and continues to draw on the expertise of colleagues from across the university community. The programme works in close collaboration with a range of individuals and groupings, most notably UCT Careers Services, UCT Faculties and recruitment officers, UCT Admissions and Financial Aid officers, and various UCT student organizations and departments.
Donations towards the 100 UP Programme will be an enormous help as the project continues to broaden access to higher education for learners from disadvantaged communities.
The Baxter Theatre Centre, designed by Jack Barnett, opened on 1 August 1977. It came into being as the result of a bequest from the late Dr W. Duncan Baxter who, in his will, bequeathed an amount of money to the University of Cape Town for the purpose of establishing a theatre which would, in the words of Dr Baxter, “develop and cultivate the arts in Cape Town and the adjacent districts for all artists”.
The Baxter Theatre had to close its doors during the COVID-19 pandemic, losing significant revenue for the theatre, artists and staff. Your generosity will help to ensure the survival of this iconic venue.
Higher education is facing a funding crisis again, compounded by the impact that the Coronavirus global pandemic has had on the economy. Many academically deserving students are in danger of seeing their futures being lost as a result of the perilous financial situation that they find themselves in. UCT recognises the financial hardships that many of our students face as a result of the impact that COVID is having on household incomes.
Because of this the University is making every effort to support students to continue with their studies.
The Student Debt Relief Fund will help those students whose family circumstances have been affected by recent events and who are unable to settle fee accounts. Thanks to your generous support, another student will move on to their next year or study, or perhaps graduate.
The support of UCT alumni around the world enabled 132 students to pay their fee debt in 2022 so that they were able to graduate. A total of R2,246,435 helped students who found themselves unavoidably in debt through family or personal circumstances. These students were studying 19 different disciplines and have all now been able to enter the world of work – in business, law, the arts, medicine, and the allied health sciences such as Occupational Therapy and Audiology.
